The second edition of this book is out now. Find out more here: https://www.contextbookshop.com/books/the-illustrated-egg-handbook-2nd-edition

The Illustrated Egg Handbook is a colourful guide that gives you a wide range of information on the structure and quality of eggs, as well as what can go wrong. Full of detailed illustrations and tables, this handbook is a perfect guide for people who want to gain knowledge in egg production and quality or even someone that just wants to know more about the inside of an egg. 

This book covers:

Basic Egg Knowledge

• The structure of an egg
• Shell portion
• White portion
• The structure of the shell 
• When hens lay eggs 
• The periodicity of egg-laying 
• Influence of light 
• Loss of broodiness 
• The egg formation process 
• Ovary 
• Oviduct 
• Cloaca 
• How eggs make their way into consumers’ hands 
• Types of chickens 
• Up to the birth of the chicken 
• Up to the production of eggs 
• Into the hands of consumers 
• Egg quality inspections 
• Definition of egg quality 
• Egg quality inspection technologies
• Egg shelf life 
• Trend in the number of cases of food poisoning 
• Basis for setting the shelf life 
• How to read a label 
• Handling eggs at home 
• Key points for household hygiene 
• Risks of breaking eggs in advance 

Examples of Eggshells

• Minor shell breakage 
• Pinholes 
• Semitransparent mottling 
• Spotted eggs 
• Glass-shelled eggs 
• Semitransparent lines 
• Long, semitransparent lines 
• Semitransparent short lines 
• Variations in shell color 
• Eggs with spots 
• Discolored eggs
• Pale eggs 
• Eggs with uneven coloring 
• Splashed eggs 
• Glossy eggs 
• Eggs with protrusions or surface roughness 
• Body-check eggs 
• Misshapen eggs 
• Paired eggs 
• White-banded eggs 
• Flattened eggs 
• Dirty eggs 

Examples of internal egg quality issues

• Meat spots
• Eggs with a pale yolk
• Cloudy albumen
• White spots on the surface of the yolk
• In-shell, physically scrambled eggs
• Ruptured yolk
• Wrinkled Yolk
• Eggs with spots on inside of shell
• White containing a cotton-like material
• Watery albumen
• Gelatine yolks
• Mottled yolks
• Yolk-less eggs
• Multiple yolk eggs
• Hen age and egg weight
• Eggs containing blood
• How ovulation works
• Eggs containing other eggs
• Follicles containing blood tumors
• Eggs containing cheese-like clumps
• Mixed rot eggs
• Rotten eggs
• Black rotten eggs
• Yellow or brown rotten eggs
• Fluorescent rotten eggs
• Microbes responsible for rotten eggs
• Eggs in which incubation stopped prematurely

Examples of boiled eggs

• Boiled eggs with green yolks
• Boiled eggs with brown albumen
• Hard-to-peel boiled eggs
• Boiled eggs with a white yolk
• Boiled eggs that contain only albumen
• Boiled eggs with red albumen
• Boiled eggs with brown albumen
• Boiled eggs with poorly defined yolks
• Fluorescent boiled eggs

Examples involving odor

• Fishy odor
• Ammonia odo
• Sulfur odor
• Eggs that acquire the odor of their storage environment
• Foul odor

Egg quality indicators

• Classifying egg quality (Japan)
• Egg quality indicators
• Shell quality indicators
• Albumen quality indexes
• Yolk quality indexes